Michael Calderone

| Local

| Books

It’s no secret that critic Jed Perl is at odds with today’s art world. His 2000 essay collection, Eyewitness, attacked an “art world in crisis,” and he’s sounded off against Pomo posterboys (and critical darlings) such as John Currin, Damien Hirst, and Matthew Barney. Just last month, Perl spilled 7,400 words in the New Republic—where he has been writing since 1994—on the death of formalism and the “hipper-than-thou bravado” of the chic taste-makers who always find the exhibition’s after-party.

| Books

| Books

Honestly, I rarely visit Times Square. Just trying to get past the maddening crowd—slow-moving tourists, screaming TRL fans, and beefy dudes heading to the ESPN Zone—can be a trying experience. Nevertheless, I kept an open mind while reading professor Marshall Berman’s On the Town, a whimsical, idiosyncratic history of Times Square. And it paid off.